Dell EMC has announced the its X-Series networking product line will now be available exclusively through its distribution partners.

Just a little over one quarter into the lifetime of the Dell EMC Partner Program, the company has seen exponential growth with its distribution partners. The X-Series family provides enterprise-grade networking for SMBs through 1 GbE and 10 GbE switches. Beginning today in North America, EMEA, and APJ, this product line will only be available to customers and partners through Dell EMC distribution partners.

“We’re seeing distribution as one of our faster routes to market, so we are going to continue to invest there,” said Jim DeFoe senior VP of global channel at Dell EMC over the phone with CDN. “The X-Series product has a high tendency to be sold through the channel. It plays well in the SMB space, and this is where we see a lot of our distributors working with our channel partners to drive sales in.”

The move towards distribution partners has been a longtime coming. 18 months ago, the company had over 900 individual months ago, before beginning a consolidation process that will narrow that number down to 150 by the end of 2017. Instead of having a large spattering of distribution partners, Dell EMC has chosen to instead focus and invest on the distribution partners that are investing in Dell EMC.

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“Distributors are investing in us and so we are investing back in them. We want to reward our distributors who have committed to our Dell EMC product line,” said DeFoe.

Distribution partners have been an important aspect of Dell EMC’s SMB push, but these partners haven’t just been involved with that aspect of the Dell EMC business. As the combined Dell EMC, Dell distributors have been working overtime with former EMC customers.

“We are seeing distribution have a great success attaching Dell servers to traditionally EMC-only partners. It’s a great expansion opportunity,” said DeFoe.

Additionally, the entire network X-Series business has shifted completely to the channel. Dell EMC has made it clear that by the end of 2017 the only way to access this product line will be through solution providers.